Intelligence was ‘mishandled, leaked,’ White House says
Documents could support Trump’s claims of surveillance
The White House WASHINGTON says it has discovered documents that may show that intelligence collected on Americans was “mishandled and leaked,” hinting that the documents may substantiate President Trump’s allegation that he was the target of surveillance by the Obama administration.
The revelation of the documents came immediately after
The New York Times reported that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes had secretly received similar information from two White House officials.
That’s when Nunes announced he had seen classified documents confirming that intelligence agencies “incidentally” collected information on U.S. citizens involved in Trump’s presidential transition, presenting the information as independent corroboration of Trump’s claims that he was caught up in surveillance. Nunes then made a visit to the Oval Office to share what may have been the White House’s own information with the president himself.
In a letter to the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, White House Counsel Don McGahn said the National Security Council had discovered documents related to mishandling of classified information, one of many areas congressional committees are examining as part of their sprawling investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election.
McGahn said the documents were discovered “in the ordinary course of business” and offered to share them with Nunes and Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
Schiff said the manner and the timing of the offer raises questions about whether the White House was trying to create a distraction from the Russia investigation. Why didn’t the National Security Council not share the documents directly with the president, rather than have a congressman do it? “If that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the White House is doing that need to be answered,” he said.
The Times, citing anonymous sources, said the officials who shared the classified reports with Nunes were Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis. Cohen-Watnick is the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council; Ellis works in the White House counsel’s office on national security issues.
Neither the White House nor the intelligence committee would confirm the Times report.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he supports keeping Nunes at the top of the House Intelligence Committee.